Organic

While there are many types of agriculture, consumers mainly see two: organic and conventional. Organic farming uses natural inputs that enhance soil fertility. That means nothing is used that might prove harmful to the air, the water, or the soil. Conventional farming uses petrochemical-based herbicides and fertilizers. Their use has been linked to water and air pollution, and soil contamination. -- Douglas Gayeton

The fundamentals of organic farming revolve around land stewardship, so as to keep the land productive for generations to come. Its about nurturing what’s above and below the top soil. And producing exceptionally nutritious goods.

Some farmers and their customers question the importance of organic labeling. Many believe that to know your farmer, and the values practice on the farm, is more valuable then any organic certification. This is “face certification” — implying local first, certification second. However, as one expert notes, as the local food movement grows, so does the organic food movement. The two share a common cornerstone: a connection to food and the land that provides it.

The foundation for healthy land and healthy bodies lies in our farming practices. Explore ways you can support organic farming practices -- the first place to start is in your kitchen.

Share this list

This week's terms

"Farming uses natural inputs that enhance soil fertility . That means nothing is used that might prove harmful to the air, the water, or the soil. Conventional farming uses petrochemical-based herbicides and fertilizers. Their use has been linked to water and air pollution and soil decontamination. Consumers concerned about the external costs associated with conventional agriculture—things that may affect their health and the environment—often buy organic products." - Warren Weber, Star Route Farms

Building soil is bringing life into the soil. It involves supporting the formation of soil aggregates through land practices that increase soil carbon and feed soil microorganisms. The aggregates are the soil infrastructure: they store carbon in a stable form and allow for the flow of air and water. While potentially long-lived, soil aggregates are destroyed by tillage and synthetic agricultural inputs.

Doing the best by the land you own or manage. We generally think caring for the land means keeping it the way it is, but as much of our land has degraded true stewardship entails restoring ecosystem function. Because we’ve lived with and on deteriorated landscapes for so long we’ve collectively lost memory of how vibrant our lands can be. The soundest land stewardship restores ecological processes so that soil health, the water cycle and biodiversity are enhanced.

Organic

Organic is farming using natural systems and inputs with a view toward a sustainable future. Warren Weber has the oldest continuously certified farm in California.

Why buy organic?

Because organic contributes to the health of the soil, the plants, the workers, and the consumers.

Why grow organic?

Apart from not polluting the soil, the aquifers, and ourselves, growing organic ensures that you are building soils for future generations and doing so in a way that maintains a balance of critical natural resources.

Warren Weber says that 35 years ago, most "experts" thought organics couldn't produce so many different crops in so many different regions of the world. They were wrong. In the 1950's, 20% of commerical farms in California were under 10 acres. Many of these farms were successful doing small crops. That model fell apart as mega farms emerged and food became a commodity. The only way for small farms to survive was to go organic. Star Route was the first in California.

Authored By

Lexicon of Sustainability

Petaluma

Posted to

Share this post

Organic Agriculture

The fundamentals of organic farming - the ideals of land stewardship in order to keep the land productive for generations - are not new. However, organic farming as we know it now came about as a reaction to the wide adaptation of input intensive farming around the time of WWII, as a result of technological advances made earlier in the century and food shortages experienced during the war. During the first half of the last century, synthetic fertilizers were affordably manufactured and tractors were quickly replacing manual labor. Farmers around the world saw the potential detriment of this industrialized farming, rejected the idea that this was advancement in agriculture, and began to study and develop methods that increased the long term productivity of their farm system and practiced farming as stewards of the land. This type of farming soon came to be known as "organic." Learn more about the principles of organic agriculturehere.

Posted to

Share this post

Certified Organic with Fred Kirschenmann

Fred Kirschenmann is a longtime national and international leader in sustainable agriculture. He shares an appointment as Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center and as President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. He also continues to manage his family's 2,600-acre certified organic farm in south central North Dakota. He is a professor in the ISU Department of Religion and Philosophy and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He has held numerous appointments, including the USDA's National Organic Standards Board and the National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.

Douglas Gayeton: You’ve done so much to help establish the method that we now use for organic certification. Could you give us a framework to understand how USDA certification for organics came to pass?

Fred Kirschenmann: It was a long process. I was on the National Organic Standards Board when we were given the responsibility to develop the rule for implementing the law. There were 17 people that were required to be on that board. It was a diverse group; four appointees were organic farmers, two were from the organic food industry, one from retail, one scientist, one from the environmental community, one from the consumer community, etc.

On most issues we came to a consensus, but there was difficulty when some of us wanted to include the focus on the health of soil in the requirements for certification. Historically, managing soil for its self-renewing capacity was an important part of what “organic” was about. We developed a rule that managing organic farms for soil health was a requirement for certification. The board agreed to that, but when the national organic program staff submitted it to the USDA lawyers for approval they rejected it. They said in a regulation you have to be able to answer things with a “yes” or a “no,” and requiring farmers to restore their soil to health is too complex to answer with a “yes” or a “no.”

That’s how we ended up with the core requirement that you cannot use synthetic inputs except those that are on the approved synthetic list—that’s a “yes” or a “no.” And you can use natural inputs except for those that are on the unapproved list—that’s also a “yes” or a “no.” Today you can be certified as an organic famer without paying any attention to the soil. You simply use natural inputs instead of synthetic inputs.

Douglas: Somebody said to me recently that one problem with organic certification is that it ultimately works to the benefit of large, industrial producers. Do you subscribe to that notion?

Fred: It can tend in that direction, and it’s because of this: if you have to pay attention to restoring the health of your soil, you have a much more intimate relationship with your farm. But if all you have to do is insert natural inputs, you can do that on a scale that ultimately has no limits except for the kind of natural inputs you can get your hands on.

Douglas: I went through the South for a few months creating films for our project. About five days in, I realized that not one of the farms I had spent time on was certified organic. When I finally asked a farm if it was certified organic, the farmer said, “You must be from California.” He said instead of organic certification, they believe in the principle of “Local First, Certification Second”. Have you heard that principle before?

Fred: I haven’t specifically heard it in that form but there is now more skepticism about certification, especially among growers, not only in the situation that you described, but also with very small growers because of the cost of certification. Small growers are more interested in developing trusting relationships directly with their customers. From their point of view, they don’t need the certification because their customers know them. Those are the kind of issues that the certification industry has to come to terms with.

When food producers get to a certain scale they lose that trusting relationship with their customer. Because of this, consumers increasingly want some sort of third party verification, whether it’s because producers are claiming their food is local, sustainable, natural, or organic. There is a lot of hype going on in the food industry. I’ve been in supermarkets where they have local cherries in a region where they aren’t growing any cherries, and you start asking, “Where do these cherries really come from?” And they say “Well, for us it’s local when it’s from within the state.” Sometimes it’s considered local if it’s within the United States and that’s not what consumers are expecting.

Douglas: Warren Weber has the oldest continuously certified organic farm in California. He said that one of the greatest things that happened to organics at the beginning was the rise of industrial agriculture, because small producers were forced to create a system that would distinguish them from the larger players. Now that these larger players have recognized that money can be made with certified organics, they’ve all moved into this space and therefore diluted this certification of its significance.

Fred: I don’t know. Each of us has our own opinion about how this is going to play out. Seven or eight years ago I had a conversation with Richard Schnieders, the president and CEO of the Sysco Corporation at the time. He was telling me that the emerging market for Sysco was no longer about being fast, convenient and cheap. It was about what he called “memory, romance, and trust.”

First, he said if you want access to this new emerging market, you want to have a product that is so good that when your consumer eats it, they say, “Wow, where did that come from? I want that again.” The people who want quality food not only want a good tasting product, but they also want to feel good about it.

Second, he said they want a good story that comes with it. Some people want to know the animals are treated appropriately, some want to know there was good environmental stewardship all the way from farm to the table, and some want to know farm workers were treated fairly. You have to pay attention and provide a compelling story that comes with the food.

Third, he said they want a trusting relationship. People don’t want to worry about things anymore. If you want to be successful in the emerging market, those are the three things you have to pay attention to. I’ve talked to a number of people in the food business and they’ve all told me that’s the right description.

Lexicon of Sustainability

Posted to

Share this post

"The Middle Way"

By now you are probably familiar with the food scandals that have been running rampant in China. In the aftermath of any such situation, new movements are born. Lifen Yang, owner and chef of Tusheng Shiguan, is part of an effort to bring healthy and organic food to Kunming, a city in the Yunnan Province of China. But for her it goes beyond healthy. After graduating from University and working in business, she found a way to go back to the farm and fight for healthy and organic food. This inspiring story shares a hopeful future for food in China.

The Perennial Plate is an online weekly documentary series dedicated to socially responsible and adventurous eating. Chef and Activist, Daniel Klein and Filmmaker Mirra Fine are traveling the world exploring the wonders, complexities and stores behind the ever more connected global food system.

San Francisco

Posted to

Share this post

LOCAL VERSUS ORGANIC

Two farmers, Edwin Marty of Alabama’s Jones Valley Urban Farm and Jay Martin of Provident Organic Farms in Bivalve, Maryland weigh in on local vs. organic and why a piece of paper may not insure you’re getting the best food available.

Local First, Certification Second

Why does Alabama have fewer certified organic farms than any other place in the country? Three reasons immediately come to mind. First, it’s hard to grow food in Alabama without synthetic chemicals because of the high humidity. Second, insect predation. Third, poor soils. Of course, there are less obvious reasons as well. For one, Black farmers were intentionally excluded from USDA funding for decades, so why would they now ‘trust’ the USDA to make their work more valuable? Also, the good ole’ boy network of farming in Alabama continues to view organics as a “hippy” thing. Finally, County Extension agents only offer research-based advice and the land-grant universities have not been incentivized to do such research.

Edwin came to town with the vision of reconnecting this urban community with sustainably grown food. He reclaimed a small plot of land and started growing herbs, lettuce and vegetables for his community. According to Edwin, “The farm uses food as a tool for social transformation. It reconnects the community to their food and improves health outcomes in an urban environment.”

Frank Stitt, Founder and Chef at Highlands Bar & Grill, comments, “People like me want organically raised food—its better for the land and our environment–but it’s more important to work with and support local farmers. They put us in step with the seasons and create a valuable bond between farmer, chef and community.”

Share this post

Why The 'Non-GMO' Label Is Organic's Frenemy

The certification labels non-GMO and organic seemingly complement each other; in reality, however, non-GMO has become the cheaper alternative to organic — without meeting the same ecological standards. The new non-GMO label is drawing customers away from organic products, undermining the viability of organic producers. NPR examines the meaning behind each label and the new trends unleashed by the non-GMO label.

Lexicon of Sustainability

Posted to

Share this post

The Cost of Organic with Mark Kastel

Mark Kastel is co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute, a populist farm policy research group based in Cornucopia, Wisconsin and director of its Organic Integrity Project. The institute's goal is promoting economic justice for family-scale farmers and protecting market access to "authentic" food for consumers.

Mark Kastel: The organic movement started in the mid-1980s. A lot of people were using the term “organic” but there was no consistency, so farmers started their own certification groups. These were true believers engaged in organic farming long before there was any premium market available. They did it because they believed in it and wanted to protect their own and their family’s health. They did it because they were true stewards of the land and they wanted an independent body that would corroborate their statements. The marketplace was, in some cases, secondary.

By the late 1980s, there was a problem with large industrial scale farming operations and medium-size operations being labeled organic. The legislature in California passed a labeling law that was much more lax than most of the independent certifiers. The independent certifiers were saying you had to be at least three years off of any synthetic agricultural input, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides or herbicides before you could label your products organic. But according to the labeling law in California, you could be organic one year, nuke the ground with herbicides the next year and then label organic the following year. For that, and a number of other reasons, we felt that having one uniform federal standard would be the best way to create a level playing field.

Douglas Gayeton: When people talk about sustainable systems they often talk about scale, and that when things become too big they can’t be managed properly. Why doesn’t scale factor into the discussion about organics and certification?

Mark Kastel: Organic standards are scale-neutral; there’s nothing in there that says that you can’t milk more than 1,000 cows, or 5,000 cows. But it’s our contention that, if enforced, organic standards are scale limiting.

For example, organic standards require that all organic livestock have access to the outdoors and organic ruminants have access to pasture. It’s one thing to be doing organic beef and have a thousand cattle in the hillside, munching away—that works great even on a larger scale. However, at an organic dairy you have to bring the cows in at least twice a day, and some big industrial outfits milk as many as three or four times a day. They would have to move those cattle back and forth to a fresh piece of grass and they’d be walking half the day.

If you’re milking cows and pushing them for so much milk production, they live short stressful lives. Real organic farmers understand that it’s the quality of the animals’ life and illness prevention is key. Whether it’s our vegetables and grains or our meat, even dairy and eggs, true organic production results in superior flavor and, as a growing body of scientific evidence suggests, a vastly superior nutritional profile.

Douglas Gayeton: Consumers often look at organic food as being elitist and simply too expensive. How do you get people to rationalize making purchases based on values instead of simply price?

Mark Kastel: Cheap food is no bargain. We have the cheapest food in the world, bar none, but we also have the most expensive healthcare system. When you combine those, the medical outcomes and quality of life outcomes in this country are abysmal.
As food became industrialized in this country and in many other affluent countries, most of us have become food secure. We have taken food for granted and it has not served us well. There are now a growing percentage of citizens that are willing to look at food as one of the most important marketplace decisions they make, and they’re voting in the marketplace.

You really can’t afford not to buy organic, fresh and local foods. Consumers are coming to recognize that more and more.

Douglas Gayeton: So you’re optimistic?

Mark Kastel: Organic food sales are growing. The farmer’s market movement, the CSA movement, and the local food movement are growing. These are people who are going out of their way for much less convenient forms of doing business to procure their food and are finding a renewed sense of spiritual connection to their food and to the earth.

Authored By

Lexicon of Sustainability

Posted to

Share this post

Banana Bread

Did you know that banana trees produce one large beautiful flower and only one bunch of (several dozen) bananas a year? Amazing when you consider that 85 million tons of bananas are consumed around the world annually. Bananas are a labor intensive industry much of which is done by hand, from hauling banana trains of 25 to 100 pound bunches to sorting for size and quality, almost all banana production is done by hand. Children of all ages seem to love the flavor and texture of bananas, and banana bread is a great way to utilize your overripe bananas. Two tips: Conventionally grown bananas are loaded with pesticides, so buy organic whenever possible. Also, bananas may be peeled and frozen in zip lock bags so you can save extras until you have enough to make a full recipe.

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees and grease a standard loaf pan.
2. Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and clove and set aside.
3. Cream sugar, yogurt, sour cream, butter, and vanilla together in a mixer using the paddle attachment scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and mix again.
4. When the egg is fully incorporated add small amounts of the sifted dry ingredients, mixing well between additions.
5. Finish by adding the mashed bananas. Do not to over mix or the bread will be dense and heavy.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. Allow to cool before slicing.